“God take away your alms. For as you live by charity, so do I by war, and to me it is as genuine a vocation as yours.”
– Sir John Hawkwood,
upon being greeted by two friars with the words, “God give you peace.”
So with this post, I wanted to highlight a quote from The Prince below that is of significance. Machiavelli used John Hawkwood as an example of ‘one who did not conquer’ or desired to conquer Florence. To me, this pointed out a key element to Hawkwood’s success. That he identified a niche in the market of force back then that made his services and company stand out.
Hawkwood was an extremely successful captain back then, and his services were highly sought after. But what is most interesting to me is this guy was a foreigner in Italy at the time. And yet he was so successful and so respected that he had the name of Giovanni Acuto given to him, awarded land, made commander of forces, citizenship offered, a pension– and get this, he was buried with state honors in the Duomo! Not bad for a foreigner and the son of an Essex tanner?
His last days as a commander of forces in Florence, are what the people remembered, just because he was so crucial to the defense of that city against Milanese expansion. But the war that impressed me, that was supposedly one of the most famous wars of that time period, was the Battle of Castagnaro. Here is a snippet from wikipedia:
Battle of Castagnaro
The Battle of Castagnaro was fought on March 11, 1387 at Castagnaro (today’s Veneto, northern Italy) between Verona and Padua. It is one of the most famous battles of the Italian condottieri age.
The army of Verona was led by Giovanni Ordelaffi and Ostasio II da Polenta, while the victorious Paduans were commanded by John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) and Francesco Novello da Carrara, the son of Francesco I, lord of Padua.
Castagnaro is hailed as Sir John Hawkwood’s greatest victory. Following a Fabian-like strategy, Hawkwood goaded the Veronese into attacking him on a field of his own choosing, by laying waste to the Veronese lands nearby.
Drawing his forces up on the far side of a canal, and anchoring his right flank on a patch of woods, Hawkwood waited until the Veronese had committed to attacking across a ford of fascines piled up in the canal. Once so occupied, Hawkwood sprang his trap.
Hawkwood had left a copy of his standard behind his forces, then had led his cavalry into the woods to his right. At a given signal – supposedly, a flaming arrow – the copy of his standard dropped, and Hawkwood’s cavalry burst from the woods on the Veronese left, with his real standard in front. At the point of impact, Hawkwood is said to have cast his commander’s baton into the Veronese ranks and ordered his men to retrieve it for him.
Per Trease, it is said that Hawkwoods battle cry that day was a grim play on the Paduan war-cry of Carro! – in Hawkwood’s rendition, it became Carne! (“Flesh!”).
It is also important to point out Hawkwood’s secrets to success. He certainly was acute or a student of warfare, and he identified the niche he needed to not only be marketable, but dominate. He also had a sense of humor, as stated with that last sentence in the quote. Here is another quote from wikipedia:
However part of the White Company’s reputation was built upon the fact that Sir John’s men were far less likely to desert dangerous situations than other mercenaries and Hawkwood soon grew much richer than many other condottiere.
This quote tells me a lot. It says that he focused on taking care of his people. The only way you can keep guys from deserting like this, is that they must have trusted Hawkwood and that he paid well. He had the top company to work for back then, and when you have a good company, you gain loyalty and develop unit cohesion. Success breeds success, as they say. I would compare it to a company like Apple or Google, and how these companies attract the best of the best, and keep them around because they pay well and the leadership/culture is awesome. Not to mention that these folks also believe in the product or service being sold.
Finally, I wanted to end this with the quote up top that also sheds some light into the mindset of Hawkwood. I do not classify this as an indication of Hawkwood’s religious beliefs or intentions, but more an indication as to his life’s focus. That he was a student of warfare, and a student of the market of force he worked in. That he understood the Italian way of the condottiere, and mastered it.-Matt
Sir John Hawkwood is on the right side.
The Prince
by Nicolo Machiavelli
CHAPTER XII
How Many Kinds Of Soldiery There Are, And Concerning Mercenaries
…And if the Venetians and Florentines formerly extended their dominions by these arms, and yet their captains did not make themselves princes, but have defended them, I reply that the Florentines in this case have been favoured by chance, for of the able captains, of whom they might have stood in fear, some have not conquered, some have been opposed, and others have turned their ambitions elsewhere. One who did not conquer was Giovanni Acuto, and since he did not conquer his fidelity cannot be proved; but every one will acknowledge that, had he conquered, the Florentines would have stood at his discretion.
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The Condottiere
“A condottiere (plural condottieri) was the holder of a military condotta (plural condotte), or contract, for the raising and leadership of troops. While condotte were being issued by Italian cities and states as early as the second half of the twelve hundreds as a means of recruiting a part of their armies, it was only in the later years of the thirteen hundreds that such contracts became the main method of raising armies in Italy. The companies, often made up largely of foreigners (many of whom had been left “unemployed” by the temporary cessation of the Hundred Years War around the time of the Black Death in 1348), which dominated Italian warfare for much of the thirteen hundreds, were normally employed under contract, but they were surprisingly democratic in their organization, and the contracts with employing states were signed by representative groups of leaders. By about 1370 individual military commanders had largely gained control of the companies and had become the sole contractors for their services. From this moment onwards the vast majority of condottieri were Italians and they dominated the military scene in Italy throughout the fourteen hundreds.
The nuclei of the companies which condottieri contracted to provide were normally kept permanently in being and augmented for specific contracts and campaigns by recruitment of additional rank and file. The condottiere, therefore, was invariably a man of substance possessing estates and permanent income which enabled him to maintain his principal followers between contracts and recruit rapidly from amongst his own tenants and dependants. These socio-economic conditions were of more importance than military reputation in dictating the size of the contract which a condottiere could obtain, and hence his prestige and reputation. Many of the leading condottieri were either independent princes like the Gonzaga lords of Mantua or the Este lords of Ferrara, or were members of extensive landowning families like the Orsini or Dal Verme.
The main strength of the condottiere company lay in its ‘lances’, a term which describes not only the main weapon of heavily armed cavalrymen but also the group of attendants who supported them. However, during the fourteen hundreds, condottieri began to take an increasing interest in infantry as an essential support to their cavalry, and a number of leading captains also possessed some artillery. While it would be wrong to see a willingness to experiment and innovate as an outstanding characteristic of the condottieri, there were among them some major military personalities. Men like Francesco Sforza, Bartolomeo Colleoni and Federico da Montefeltro had European reputations in the mid-fourteen hundreds, and in the Wars of Italy many of the most successful leaders of the French and Spanish armies in Italy were Italian condottieri.
Undoubtedly the contract system of service tended to breed a sort of military individualism which weakened the cohesion of a large army, but in fact by the fourteen hundreds the system did not mean that condottieri changed their employment with every contract. The Italian states were among the first in Europe to develop permanent armies, and most Italian condottieri settled into a pattern of routine renewals of increasingly long-term contracts with one or other of the states. There remained the exceptional figures whose reputations, and whose control of what amounted to large private armies, prompted political ambitions and made them targets of increasingly tempting offers from potential employers. But at this level the condotta took on some of the characteristics of a diplomatic alliance, and a switch of allegiance has to be seen in terms of international politics rather than individual infidelity. In formal terms the condotta system and the role of the condottiere as a leader of cavalry survived throughout the fifteen hundreds. But the declining importance of cavalry in war and the growing political domination of France and Spain in Italy meant an end to their political role and a decline in social prestige.”
Source: The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance